twenty-five metres squared or this small space

Earlier this summer, the Kingdom of Sweden relaxed zoning and permit regulations in order to promote home- improvement projects and ultimately address the housing shortage. Though this initial retraction applies only to structures less than twenty-five square metres in area and up to four metres in height, there’s been already an incredible creative volume of living spaces eked out within these parameters, celebrated in a picture book, as Quartz features. I think that such codes ought to only be relaxed in small, livable and sustainable increments to foster wonder and inspiration.

pause for station identification

Happy Holidays, and please enjoy while this interpretative dance troupe presents to you their version of the Yule Log!

father frost

Reviewing a list of seasonal gift-bearers, I found it a bit jarring at first to see the list of regional variations on the familiar characters of Santa Claus and Saint Nikolaus to abruptly change to Saint Basil for the Greeks and other lands that follow the Orthodox Church.

It is not as if the historical personage of Saint Nikolaus, also hailing from Asia Minor, comes to us directly down the chimney in his present rosy and jovial form without some significant outside influences and concessions to preexisting customs, but—without knowing the evolution of the saint, it seems that this aesthetic monk who is the patron (among other things) of Russia—though Nikolaus is the protector of Moscow—and hospital administrators, and sometimes professional commencement speaker who delivers presents on 1 January seems vastly different. Not a direct counterpart, the Orthodox Church considers Nikolaus moreover an advocate for sailors, though sharing the same charitable feelings for children and the poor, and instead allows this early Church doctor and delegate to the synod that Constantine convened at Nicaea in order that those squabbling Christians could hash out their differences once and for all to champion the cause of delivering gifts and good cheer at Christmas time. As Nikolaus became conflated with Santa Claus, his helpers and Father Christmas, so too did Basil take on the manners and duties of Дед Мороз (going by many names), Father Frost. Originally a Slavic spirit of the wintry weather, parents used to ransom their children with treats for the spirit to protect them during these harsh months. Saint Basil helped Father Frost have a change of heart and he reversed his ways and began paying back the community. Compare this to one of Basil’s historical missions when he rallied the town of Caesarea to denote all their material wealth to raise an army to defend themselves from immanent Raids.

All the people of the town, from the richest to the poorest readily complied but when the attackers never materialised, no one was quite sure what they had given, so Basil decreed that the gold coins be baked into sumptuous loaves and given out to all residents, and so was the wealth redistributed. This lucky tradition is observed in Greece and other lands on New Years to this day—the vasilopita, Basil’s pie. Father Frost was also considered secular enough a figure to sneak past the Communist regimes that sought to eradicate religious practises. Saint Basil’s reputation for caring for the poor also stemmed from his marshaling of traditions that formed the self-sufficient monastic orders. Outside the gates of Caesarea, there was a grand campus called the Basiliad, which was a model for later monasteries with a guesthouse, hospital, a hospice and a library. This basic unit of government greatly influenced the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church and the monastic movement took hold in far-flung places like Ireland, helping to preserve learning and the faith with supporting institutions, like the Roman Empire, fell is but one accomplishment among the retinue of Basil’s legacy—plus bring presents.

frame story or ship of theseus

Already condemned after violating a couple of canon-rules when trying his hand with the latest iteration of the Star Trek universe, a lot of fans have girded themselves for the worst as the producer takes over the helm for the Star Wars franchise—however, as I have discovered, and really just down to the wire as I just finished the engrossing and complex novel that H gave me for Christmas last year—not that it was due to expire or that a sequel is forthcoming, just that I wanted to finish it and the pace quickened as I neared the end—screen-writer JJ Abrams can direct a really fine book and surely deserves some faith.

Co-authored with Doug Dorst, S or the Ship of Theseus is an epistolary novel, a story told through letters, primarily, but with the substantial subtext of the correspondence taking place on the pages and in the margins of a Bildungsroman, beloved and familiar to both of the main characters but grow to appreciate it more as their complimentary notes uncover more details and clues about the possible identity of the mysterious, semi-legendary anarchist author himself. It was a really fun and involved experiment that was quite an undertaking, not only in creating the parallels that stand on their own merits as plotlines but also a very accomplished work in terms of type-setting and book-binding: not only does the novel have the heft, appearance and smell of a much circulated library book, there are also numerous other artefacts tucked between the pages—postcards, newspaper clippings and even a decoder. The layers of action reminded me a little bit of The Never-Ending Story, and while I do not believe that the marginalia detracted from the reader’s imaginations, I also do not feel that every story might benefit from such a telling—though I think it is an interesting projection of the way we maybe read things—unafraid to mentally highlight certain passages for instantaneous research to their conclusion and cite our own footnotes.